Genes are to Evolution, Memes are to Culture, Dicenes are to General Intelligences.

Open-ended generative processes like evolution and human culture have a thing that is replicated and propagated by the process. For evolution, these are known as genes. For culture, these are known as memes.

It became obvious to me that there isn't an equivalent for individual brains. Is there something that is equivalent to this in general intelligent systems or biological brains?

I have come up with a term that describes these. The word I've invented is 'dicene'. This word is inspired by C.S. Peirce's dicent sign or dicisign. It is the combination then of dicent and gene, and thus dicene.

But why dicene over so many other possibilities like schemes, themes, intuitions, patterns, schemas, embeddings, attention, habits, explanations, ideas, meanings, representations, concepts, analogies, and lekta?

POSSIBLE MOTIVE FOR THE NASHVILLE BOMBING?

“This is just one explosion, where else are they planning?…They knew exactly where to hit, at the fiber vault on the street. You get 3-4 of those go off, it could produce a Regional or US Wide telecom outage.”

https://t.co/VZrhpB7Nn2

Yesterday #AdamSmith said things work pretty well when people have perfect liberty to choose a trade and where to practice it? In this half of the chapter he specifies the ways people aren’t at perfect liberty, and whose fault it is. (I.x.c.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

And (spoiler) it's government policy’s fault! They restrain competition in some places, increase it in others, and obstruct free movement of labor. (I.x.c.2) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Many government restraints on competition are “as foolish as can well be imagined.” Like how coachmakers can’t make the wheels for coaches, but wheelmakers can make coaches. (I.x.c.9) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Lots of the rules he objects to have to do with apprenticeships, which may be one reason he’s not a fan of apprenticeship in general. (I.x.c.11) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Your labor belongs to you. It’s unjust for anyone to interfere with your sacred right to work. That doesn’t mean they have to hire you, just that it is a violation if a guild or government forbids someone from working. (I.x.c.12) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

The reason that so many conservative evangelicals these days appear to be moral relativists is that they *are* moral relativists.

They would deny this, of course. But that doesn’t make it any less true. Here's why.

They’ve bought into the premise that all statements are either fact or opinion: facts are objective and verifiable; and everything else is opinion—subjective and unverifiable. In other words, they've bought into full-fledged modernism.

From there, the secular path to moral relativism places all moral statements in the “opinion” category. On this view, morality is subjective—dependent on cultural context, historical background and the like.

Conservative evangelicals recoil from this approach, as they should.

So instead, they place morality in the “fact” category, claiming that moral truth is objective and empirically verifiable.

And how is moral truth empirically verified? The Bible, of course. Problem solved.

This is tempting, for two reasons. First, Scripture is entirely true; and much of that truth pertains to morality.

Second, apart from special revelation, it’s difficult to imagine where we might go to find empirical verification of moral truth—you can't *see* moral properties.

After going through over 500 CVs over the last few days, I thought I might share some observations for those seeking an entry-level position at an international NGO like @hrw.

Of course, what I’m about to say doesn’t apply for all job openings everywhere. But for entry-level posts at a fairly big NGO, I think these thoughts will hold.

The main takeaway is that some people sell themselves on their CVs much better than others, even when they have the same or similar qualifications as others.

As usual, I was overwhelmed with the quality of the people applying. Most had one, more often two, masters degrees, two or three solid internships, if not actual jobs, and minimum 2 languages. Usually 3. Some 5.

As normal with an entry-level post, many applicants had similar qualifications: degrees in international relations or journalism/communications. Internships were generally at similar places: EU institutions & NGOs. Languages also generally English & French & one other EU language

Good afternoon, followers of frivolous performative litigation.

New filing in Orly Tatiz's bonkers attempt to halt the 2nd Impeachment trial. It's a gloriously burning train wreck of mangled formatting and hideous typography.

Let's dig

For those who may have forgotten, this is the case we saw last week - the one where Orly took the 12(b)(6) game to the next level by LITERALLY forgetting to include actual claims in her complaint.

So technically it's still unclear what she's suing over.

And, frankly, it's not like I can talk about the merits of this one because there aren't any. But the sheer stunning insanity of the formatting alone makes this worth a thread.

Even though, honestly, it's not the worst Orly has produced.

For context, the text below comes from the State of Hawaii's 2012 response to a motion for reconsideration in one of the birther cases.

"an inartfully collated, defectively stapled, and misordered collection of pages" is still one of my favorite descriptions of a filing ever.

Just to start with, apparently we're putting the caption on both sides of the (incomplete) line now. Single spaced on one side, double spaced on the other, no less. With everything but the judge's name in caps.

As more women are arrested for involvement in Jan 6 insurrection, support of QAnon comes up again & again. It is a "movement" driven largely by white women that FBI labelled terrorist threat in 2019.

I wrote this about them: White Women Storm the Capitol

A NIGGA CHRISTMAS

Twas the night before Christmas, when all thru the plantation,
not a nigga was voting, not even for reparations,
Strange fruit was hung on the oak trees with care,
In hopes that Catcha Freeman would soon be there,

Little Sally was nestled all snug in her bed,
While Thomas the pedophile got in his head,
I'm president, I'm white, I can have what I want,
I'll take it, she'll give it, my privilege, I'll flaunt,

While Massa was taking it, I went back to sleep,
And prayed to White Jesus my nigga soul to keep,
When out in the fields arose such an Uncle Ruckus,
I sprang from my haystack to see what the fuckus,

Away to the outhouse, I ran like Nat Turner,
I tore open the shutters and let out a murmur,
when, what to my wondering eyes would appear?,
was Steve Harvey telling slaves "we black out here,"

I looked up in sky, was it a bird or a plane?,
No, It was Oprah in a sled filled with her favorite thangs,
Dropping gifts 2 good white folks who gave her good luck
tossing bootstraps to niggas so we could pull our ass up,

Thread:
Back in 2007, I TAed Dr. Emmanuel Katongole's course on the Rwandan Genocide. Every session, a student would try to argue that the genocide couldn't have happened if only there had been an *authentic* Christianity among the Hutu who killed the Tutsi ...

who were their neighbors as well as fellow Catholics. The slaughters took place in houses, fields, and even churches–shared churches where the murderers attended with the ones they murdered. So was the faith only genuine or authentic for the victims, or ...

was something else going on? The false tribal narrative promoted by the colonial ID cards had a powerful effect on how people imagined themselves. When radio personalities demonized the Tutsi and called for their slaughter, the ID cards were the markers between people...

Not baptism. Not family. Not church membership. An invented idea. But the week before the killings started, these people were in church together. Did the faith stop being authentic? Did grace have an expiration date? No.

But the decision to allow state politics to give meaning to human bodies displaced the Body of Christ in the people's way of imagining themselves. Right now, a lot of people are tempted to think that the insurrectionists would back down if they had *authentic* Christianity,...

IS HISTORY ALL TRUE SERIES: when even the #Calendar isn’t❓

THE REAL ACTUAL SOLAR CALENDAR:
*Based on the noble science of #Astronomy; the sister science to #Geometry, #Mathematics and the “almost” lost numerical science mysteries. Which was mastered in

“ancient” times, but is close to forgotten, in these “modern” days. Go figure❗️😄☦️

Navigation of the oceans was man’s first real great step of personal evolution, here on earth. The earliest of discovered sciences; #astronomy; allowed men to navigate through

routes to known territories; or to discover new ones, by the endlessly reliable positions of the stars and constellations, in the night sky. Hence; much diligent study, over who knows how many epochs, and great civilizations; was an esteemed scholarly pursuit. And led to a vast

understanding of the mechanics of our solar system, as well as the natural cycles of our planet, that even we; in this so-called Information Age “high civilization, don’t often know even exists any longer. A decay of common knowledge, in our “modern” educations, actually.

#Calendars have come and gone In the last few thousand years; motivated apparently by the politics of the day, or personal whim even, by the rulers of the moment; which somehow stuck, from there, and has hardly ever been questioned again.

Here we go! Tweeting our way through #WealthOfNations! It’s a marathon, not a sprint, so be sure to stretch, stay hydrated, and keep a steady pace. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

That’s one heck of a first sentence, Dr. Smith. No dithering here. The division of labor is the secret sauce that increases productivity. (I.i.1) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

We always forget the pin factory comes this early and that Smith looks at it not because pins are important (though they are!) but because it’s a small industry that you can look at all at once.(I.i.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

How many pins can the SmithTweeters make in a day? How bad do you want them to be? (I.i.3) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

Do you think the pin guys were all “Dude, we let you observe our work, told you how many pins in a pound, showed you every step in the process...and you call us a ‘trifling manufacture’? Not cool, Smith!” (I.i.4) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

OK! Who's ready to talk at great length and in great detail about prices? #AdamSmith, that's who! (I.v) #BuckleUp because this is the first of three chapters Smith prepped us for yesterday. (I.v) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

We're about get into some #LaborTheoryOfValue. (I.v.1–18) We, the SmithTweeters, are firmly on board with the #MarginalRevolution (and we are fans of @MarginalRevolt). But Smith's theory is more complex than is often recognized. #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets #ValueHowDoesItWork

The caricature version of the #LaborTheoryOfValue is that the longer you work on a thing, the more it must be worth. This is obviously wrong, and Smith (and Marx, btw) would agree that it's wrong. (I.v.1–18) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets

(We know this version of the #LaborTheoryOfValue is wrong because we once carved a giant statue of #AdamSmith out of haggis. Took us hours. No one wanted to buy it. Go know!)

Again: We think the #LaborTheoryOfValue as it's actually presented is wrong, too, but we should at least understand how it's wrong and where it's right. (I.v.1–18) #WealthOfTweets #SmithTweets